The Inner West and its streets
Four councils
By council, the Inner West takes in Inner West Council, Canada Bay, Strathfield and Burwood, roughly as far west as the A3. Leichhardt, 5 kilometres from the CBD, is where Inner West Council is run from.
Terraces and kerbside cars
Glebe, Newtown and Annandale are known for terraces and cottages, and in Leichhardt about a third of homes are terraces, semis or townhouses. Where a car lives on the street, a mobile mechanic can't always work on it there: RAA, for its own mobile inspections, wants a spot that's off the public road.
Parramatta Road and the tunnels
Parramatta Road runs through the middle, the Hume Highway branches off it at Summer Hill, and the M4 now runs mostly underground to the Rozelle Interchange. On the surface, Parramatta Road has long been criticised for congestion, and that's start-stop driving that wears brakes faster.
Cars that sit for days
Light rail runs from Central to Dulwich Hill, and the Bankstown line west of Sydenham has been closed since September 2024 for metro works. Some Inner West cars only come out at weekends, and RACV lists long spells parked among the usual reasons a battery goes flat.
Pink slips and mobile work in the Inner West
Most light vehicles more than 5 years old need a pink slip every year from an AIS station before the rego renews. NSW allows mobile providers who inspect where the car is, but they still need a safe, legal place to do it, so a driveway or a work car park is easier than the kerb. Pink slips in Sydney has the detail.
For bigger jobs, a workshop close to the car is often less trouble than finding room on the street. Marrickville and Strathfield have their own pages if the car is there.
What we'd do
If the car lives on the street, we'd say so up front and, for anything more than a battery, arrange to have the work done at a friend's driveway or the work car park instead. If neither is handy, we'd take it to a workshop near home and catch the light rail or a bus back.